How Crossmolina conquered Ireland

“HERE’S to Crossmolina.”

The parting words of Brian Benson to the hundreds that packed the club gymnasium hours after the greatest win in the club’s 138-year history. After what they had been through, nothing more needed to be said.

It’s a sporting tale with few parallels in Ireland, let alone in Mayo. The end of this great story is captured with great eloquence and emotion elsewhere in The Mayo News. Here, we cast an eye back to the beginning of a journey that captured the intrigue of the Mayo GAA community before capturing the hearts and minds of the nation on a glorious, emotional, never-to-be-gotten Sunday in Croke Park.

ON THE FLOOR

THE year was 2021. Crossmolina were not in a good place on the field. The man who won county senior titles with them as a dashing corner forward took charge of a group ‘that was just a little bit on the floor’ that needed ‘big change’ in their culture.

The glorious All-Ireland winning spring of 2001 was then but a distant memory. Seventeen years after he lost an All-Ireland senior final to Nemo Rangers, Benson took on a team that had suffered a slow, steady decline with the retirement of its greatest-ever players.

In 2018, Crossmolina Deel Rovers were relegated to intermediate football. They barely won a game in league or championship that year.

Things couldn’t get much worse under Benson. But for a long time, they didn’t really get much better.

Between 2019 and 2023, they failed to progress beyond the quarter-finals. There were even years when they failed to get out of their group.

They had good players; a young Jordan Flynn, Fionán Duffy, Conor Loftus, Cathal Carolan, who’d all worn the Mayo jersey at some stage.

In 2023, the Coggins brothers began to bloom. So to did young Darragh Syron, Matthew Gordettskyy and James Maheady. In 2024, four Crossmolina players played Minor for Mayo.

But the most talked-about addition to the Crossmolina team was that of John Maughan. The former Mayo and Crossmolina manager brought experience, steel, no-nonsense and a bit of craic as part of a ‘good cop-bad cop’ relationship with Benson.

^{Former Mayo manager and Crossmolina selector John Maughan (right), with Crossmolina manager Brian Benson (left) and team coach Thomas McNulty (centre) Pic: Lily Hegarty}

But it wasn’t Maughan who put the idea of winning All-Irelands into their head. That was Seán Connolly, a performance ‘guru’ from Hollymount who was involved with Crossmolina for much of the past year.

“Everyone thought he was a bit mad, but he was right in the end,” said Niall Coggins after the All-Ireland final.

NEW DAWN

CROSSMOLINA started going places. They were unbeaten en route to a Division 2 league title and were tipped as contenders for a championship where nearly every team is a dark horse but nobody can be called ‘favourites’.

As expected, they had to leave everything on the field to get the better of their neighbours Lahardane under the shadow of Nephin in the first round.

Then came their first major setback. In the opening, and most epic, of a three-game saga, Moy Davitts took Crossmolina’s scalp by the Deel River on a score of 5-13 to 2-17.

It was the best game of a brilliant intermediate club championship, but a chastening experience for Crossmolina.

^{Brian Reape of Moy Davitts tangles with Jordan Flynn of Crossmolina during the 2024 Mayo Intermediate Football Championship Pic: The Mayo News}

It was also a day that revealed a lot about them as a team, one capable of scoring 2-17 against the strongest intermediate team in Mayo but blowing an eleven-point lead.

When asked to reflect on that game in later weeks, the Crossmolina lads said there there was no, bellowing, bawling, bollockings or banging of tables afterwards. They knew their defence needed to be tightened up - and that’s exactly what they did.

They beat Louisburgh in the third round to escape the group. They then made the semi-finals after beating The Neale by a point in the worst game of the championship.

Ballinrobe put up a longer, stiffer test in Claremorris a week later. The Deel Rovers wasted an inordinate amount of chances in normal time before James Maheady’s winning extra-time point dismissed a Ballinrobe team that had wasted as much if not more.

It was the noughties all over again for the Deel Rovers - kind of.

Maroon and white hung from every butchers, bakers and drapers in the Crossmolina as their footballers geared up for one last dance with Moy Davitts in MacHale Park.

It wasn’t to be the last dance. however. As they’d done so many times before, Crossmolina went ahead and let their opponents back into it. This time, they squandered a four-point lead to set up another county final a week later under floodlights instead of daylight.

Extra time loomed yet again in the replay. Then Niall Coggins scored his umpteenth goal of the campaign, and history was made.

But there was more history in the making.

CONNACHT CHAMPIONS

THEIR road to provincial glory was freshly tarmacked compared to the pot-holed-filled dirt track they took to win the county title.

They saw off St Michaels of Galway in MacHale Park before journeying east for the Connacht final to face Elphin in Dr Hyde Park.

Though they drifted in both games, it was still enough to win them their first provincial title since 2002.

^{Crossmolina celebrate winning the Connacht Intermediate Club Championship after defeating Elphin in Dr Hyde Park Pic: Lily Hegarty}

A team that made a name for making hard work of games reached the All-Ireland final with relative ease when they beat Caragh of Kildare in a frosty Pearse Park in Longford.

With determined brows furrowing above gleaming smiles, the Crossmolina players spoke afterwards of the challenge that lay ahead. In just eight days time, they’d be back in the saddle again on the biggest stage of all, seeking to write their names in the annals of Crossmolina GAA history along with the great men of 2001.

It turns out they had no idea what challenges lay ahead.

TRAGEDY

FIVE days later, nobody in Crossmolina was talking about the All-Ireland finals.

The final was to be played on Sunday, January 12 at 4.30 pm. The Thursday before, Conor Loftus’ fiancée, Róisín Cryan, died tragically. She was 28 years old.

In a matter of days, football went from the centre of Crossmolina’s universe to the back of their heads.

A young woman was laid to rest, but the flags stayed up. There was still a game of football to be played.

Their preparations were affected, and the final eventually moved to Sunday, January 26 after the dust settled.

Determining the precise effect it would have on them physically and psychologically was impossible to say.

Who were we to peer into the soul of a young man playing in an All-Ireland final ten days after burying the love of his life?

To what degree would Conor Loftus would be stunted or emboldened by such an incomprehensible loss?

Yes, Conor Loftus is one man out of fifteen, but a key man nonetheless. A player who has been playing the club football of his life, and who was instrumental in Crossmolina winning county and provincial titles.

“Keep pushing, keep training, keep driving on. Be ready to go whenever the game is played,” was his message to his teammates, even at a time of unimaginable grief, according to Brian Benson

Some wondered if Loftus would play at all, given the circumstances. But instead of standing back, he stood up, delivering an excellent display crowned by an immortal, All-Ireland-winning penalty kick.

GLORY

A few quiet handshakes and hugs later, he disappeared discretely down the tunnel without even touching the silverware he had gone to hell and back to win.

It was a Hollywood ending. But Hollywood is only fiction, at the end of the day. This was real heroism, an act of love, duty and service to a club and a community that will revere him forever more.

“Conor Loftus is a very special person,” his captain and cousin, Mikie Loftus, told those gathered at the homecoming.

“I really want to say, from the bottom of my heart, that Conor Loftus should be respected to the day he dies for what he done.”

Here’s to Conor Loftus, and here’s to Crossmolina.